🔗 Share this article

A stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers set about memorialising their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents drinking in the very same inn, going to the same church and placing their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could continue to see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were polled early on about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we stroll, the director details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed special permission to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but more than twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see annually, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is expected to